Volume 63 / Number 3 / 2016
Experimental Psychology
zea_30-10-5-5_46-48_positiv.indd 1,3
Volume 63 / Number 3 / 2016
Experimental
Psychology
Editor-in-Chief
Christoph Stahl
Editors
Tom Beckers
Arndt Bröder
Adele Diederich
Chris Donkin
Gesine Dreisbach
Kai Epstude
Magda Osman
Manuel Perea
Klaus Rothermund
Samuel Shaki
16.06.2016 11:02:36
Contents
Short Research Articles
News and Announcements
! 2016 Hogrefe Publishing
Distraction of Mental Arithmetic by Background Speech: Further
Evidence for the Habitual-Response Priming View of Auditory Distraction
Nick Perham, John E. Marsh, Martin Clarkson, Rosie Lawrence,
and Patrik Sörqvist
141
In-Group Versus Out-Group Source Memory: Spontaneously Inferred
Features Can Both Facilitate and Impair Source Memory
Michael Greenstein, Nancy Franklin, and Jessica Klug
150
Eye Movement Patterns Characteristic of Cognitive Style:
Wholistic Versus Analytic
Ortal Nitzan-Tamar, Bracha Kramarski, and Eli Vakil
159
Mental Numerosity Line in the Human’s Approximate Number System
Xinlin Zhou, Chaoran Shen, Leinian Li, Dawei Li, and Jiaxin Cui
169
Is the Emotional Dog Blind to Its Choices? An Attempt to Reconcile
the Social Intuitionist Model and the Choice Blindness Effect
Marek A. Vranka and Štěpán Bahnı́k
180
Spacing and Presentation Modes Affect the Unit-Decade Compatibility
Effect During Number Comparison
Belinda Pletzer, Andrea Scheuringer, and TiAnni Harris
189
Call for Papers: Experimental Psychology
Editor-in-Chief: Christoph Stahl
196
Experimental Psychology (2016), 63(3)
Experimental
Psychology
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Short Research Article
Distraction of Mental Arithmetic
by Background Speech
Further Evidence for the Habitual-Response Priming View
of Auditory Distraction
Nick Perham,1 John E. Marsh,2,3 Martin Clarkson,1 Rosie Lawrence,1 and Patrik Sörqvist3
1
Department of Applied Psychology, Cardiff Metropolitan University, UK
2
School of Psychology, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, Lancashire, UK
3
Department of Building, Energy, and Environmental Engineering, University of Gävle, Sweden
Abstract: When solving mental arithmetic problems, one can easily be distracted by someone speaking in the background and this distraction
is greater if the speech comprises numbers. We explored the basis of this disruption by asking participants to solve mental addition problems
(e.g., “45 + 17 = ?”) in three different conditions: background speech comprising numbers in ascending order (e.g., “61, 62, 63, 64, 65”),
background speech comprising numbers in descending order (e.g., “65, 64, 63, 62, 61”), and quiet. Performance was best in quiet, worse in the
descending numbers condition, and poorest in the ascending numbers condition. In view of these findings, we suggest that disruption arises as
a by-product of preventing the primed, but inaccurate, candidate responses from assuming the control of action. Alternative explanations are
also discussed.
Keywords: Mental arithmetic, Irrelevant sound, Habitual responses, Priming
In today’s work environment, with its increase in technology and information communication, background sound
is almost ubiquitous and is a cause of decreased performance on tasks such as short-term recall, mental arithmetic, train timetable analysis, reading comprehension,
and the Blocks World (Banbury & Berry, 1998; Jones,
1999; Perham & Banbury, 2012, Perham, Banbury, & Jones,
2005; Perham & Currie, 2014; Perham, Hodgetts, & Banbury, 2013; Perham & Macpherson, 2012; Waldron, Patrick,
Morgan, & King, 2007). A simple laboratory demonstration
of this situation known as the irrelevant sound effect (ISE)
reveals that irrelevant sound can cause a drop in performance of 30–50%, the magnitude of the effect is not
affected by preference for the sound (Perham & Sykora,
2012; Perham & Vizard, 2010) and very few people (around
8%) are invulnerable to the distraction (Jones, 1999). In this
paper, we explore the novel view that background sound
disrupts mental arithmetic performance to the extent that
it primes habitual responses that threaten to assume control
over behavioral output (Marsh, Sörqvist, Halin, Nöstl, &
Jones, 2013).
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Mechanisms of Auditory Distraction
Auditory distraction in the context of the laboratory is best
exemplified by the ISE, in which serial recall of a series of
7–9 items, in presentation order, is poorer in a background
sound condition compared to quiet. Over the last 40 years
or so, a number of theories have attempted to explain this
simple, yet robust, phenomenon. These views have been termed “attentional capture” (Hughes, Vachon, & Jones,
2005), “interference-by-content,” and “interference-byprocess” (Hughes, Vachon, Hurlstone, et al., 2011). One
example of the interference-by-content approach is the
notion that the ISE is a function of the overlap in the
phonemes of items in the background sound and the tobe-recalled visual items (Salamé & Baddeley, 1982). Interference-by-content views, however, experience difficulties
explaining why, for example, non-phonological sounds such
as tones, office noise, and instrumental music also impair
short-term serial recall performance (Jones & Macken,
1993; Perham, Banbury, & Jones, 2007a; Tremblay,
Macken, & Jones, 2001). The attentional capture view
Experimental Psychology (2016), 63(3), 141–149
DOI: 10.1027/1618-3169/a000314
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assumes that sound captures attention away from the focal
task, thereby reducing the level of attentional resources
available for any demanding focal task (Bell, Röer, Dentale,
& Buchner, 2012; Cowan, 1995). This attentional capture
view is consistent with the observation that people habituate
to the disruptive effects of background sound (Bell et al.,
2012; Röer, Bell, & Buchner, 2014a, 2014b). Typically,
however, some degree of distraction is still present after
habituation (Röer et al., 2014a; Tremblay & Jones, 1998)
suggesting that other mechanisms contribute to distraction
as well. One candidate mechanism is interference-by-process whereby the ISE is a joint function of the acoustic variability of the sound and the degree to which effective
performance on the focal task requires serial rehearsal. For
instance, the changing-state effect is when a changing-state
sound sequence (“n, r, p. . .”) produces more disruption than
a steady-state sound sequence (“c, c, c. . .”), at least when
task performance necessitates rehearsal of the to-berecalled items in their order of presentation (Beaman &
Jones, 1997, 1998; Marsh, Hughes, & Jones, 2009; Perham,
Banbury, & Jones, 2007b). It is possible to experimentally
disentangle the attention capture and the interference-byprocess mechanisms (Hughes, Vachon, & Jones, 2005,
2007). For example, task-instruction manipulations show
that deviant sound – which captures attention – disrupts
serial recall of a list of items as well as the ability to identify
a missing item from a list of items, while changing-state
sound sequences without abrupt deviants only produce
disruption to serial recall but not to the missing item task
(Beaman & jones, 1997; Hughes et al., 2007). Moreover,
making the to-be-recalled items harder to perceive at encoding blocks attention capture but does not increase resistance
to the changing-state effect (Hughes et al., 2013). In view of
these findings, a duplex-mechanism account has been
developed (Hughes, 2014) which suggests that auditory
distraction is a joint product of attention capture and interference between processes.
Also consistent with the duplex-mechanism account are
the findings concerning how semantic properties of the
background sound contribute to disruption of serial recall.
On the one hand, the magnitude of the irrelevant sound
effect is comparable regardless of whether participants
can understand the background sound (Colle & Welsh,
1976; Jones, Miles, & Page, 1990) or whether the content
of the sound is semantically similar to the to-be-recalled
items (Buchner, Irmen, & Erdfelder, 1996; Marsh, et al.,
2009, but see Hughes & Jones, 2005). For example,
Buchner et al. (1996) found that serial recall of lists of
two-digit numbers was no more disrupted by to-be-ignored
two-digit numbers (that were not part of the to-be-recalled
list) than it was by nonwords that comprised the phonemes
of the numbers, or word combinations whereby the phonemes of the irrelevant items were similar to those of the
to-be-recalled numbers. Moreover, this same study showed
that the “semantic distance” between the to-be-recalled
and to-be-ignored items also played no role in the degree
of interference: Irrelevant items that were within the same
decade as the to-be-recalled numbers but 2 or 5 above or
below produced as much disruption as those drawn from
2 to 5 decades above or below the to-be-recalled numbers.
The absence of disruptive effects related to the meaning of
the sound in the serial recall task is likely to be a consequence of the fact that, typically, the to-be-recalled information is a relatively short list of homogenous and
relatively semantically-impoverished verbal items (e.g., digits; Beaman & Jones, 1997; Buchner et al., 1996). Due to the
lack of semantic-based strategies in the serial recall task, in
this context there is no conflict between the task-related
processes and the obligatory semantic processing of the
background speech. These findings speak for an interference-by-process mechanism underpinning distraction. On
the other hand, when the background sound comprises
items with high valence (Buchner, Mehl, Rothermund, &
Wentura, 2004, 2006) or self-relevant items such as the
listener’s own name (Röer, Bell, & Buchner, 2013), disruption to serial recall increases. These findings are more consistent with an attention capture mechanism whereby
disruption is produced by the sound diverting attention
away from the memoranda.
The interference-by-process explanation receives further
support from the finding that the effects of the semantic
similarity, between words within a to-be-ignored background sound and words to-be-recalled (e.g., when all
words belong to the same semantic category), are modulated by the task instructions. The effects of the semantic
similarity are larger when the task is to recall the items in
free order, in comparison with when the task requirement
is to recall the items in order of presentation (Marsh,
Hughes, & Jones, 2008, 2009; for an analogous finding
in relation to phonological similarity, see Marsh, Vachon,
& Jones, 2008). This between-sequence semantic similarity
effect manifests as impaired veridical recall of the to-berecalled items and as an increase in erroneous recall
whereby, typically, the to-be-ignored items intrude into
the recall protocol (Marsh, Hughes, Sörqvist, Beaman, &
Jones, 2015). Of particular interest to the present study,
erroneous recall (of the to-be-ignored words) is greater
when the words that comprise the background speech are
high in output dominance (e.g., the word DOG from the
category four-legged animals) in comparison with then they
are low output dominant (e.g., the word BADGER from the
category four-legged animals; Marsh, Sörqvist, Hodgetts,
Beaman, & Jones, 2015). One interpretation of this finding
is that to-be-ignored high output dominant category exemplars – that are arguably habitual responses – more easily
come to mind at recall, especially when primed by the
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background speech, and thus have to be inhibited so as not
to intrude covertly or overtly into the recall protocol
(Marsh, Beaman, Hughes, & Jones, 2012; Marsh, Sörqvist,
et al., 2015). In this context, the distracter items appear to
compete for action (i.e., recall output). A similar example
of this disruption produced by irrelevant semantic material
competing for action has been observed in the context of
the Stroop effect. To read the printed word is a habitual
response, but the response is inappropriate in the context
of naming the color in which the color-word is presented,
and produces interference by competing for verbal output
(Elliott, Cowan, & Valle-Inclan, 1998). Deterioration in
focal task performance [reduced veridical recall (Marsh,
Hughes, et al., 2015) or slowed color-naming (Elliott
et al., 1998)] may arise as a side effect of the executive
mechanisms that prevent irrelevant responses from commandeering the control of action. From here on, the term
“competition-by-action” is used as replacement of “interference-by-process” because it specifies the underpinning
mechanism in greater detail.
That background sound produces substantial distraction
when it contains information that primes habitual responses
in the context of the focal task has recently been shown in
the context of the random number generation task (Marsh
et al., 2013). Here, the participants’ task was to generate a
sequence of single-digit numbers in a random fashion, thus
avoiding habitual-response sequencing such as the production of the sequence “1 2 3 4” and “2 4 6 8.” The randomness of the generated sequence was compromised when
background sound comprised of numbers in canonical order
(“1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9”) while it was unaffected by background
sound that comprised of numbers in random order. Similarly, Buchner, Steffens, Irmen, and Wender (1998) found
that distracters that formed an ascending pattern (e.g., “6,
7, 8”) produced slightly more disruption to counting than
distracters that formed no pattern, but only when numbers
were close to the running total within the task. Both findings
suggest that background sounds that prime contextuallyrelevant, but response-inappropriate information for the
focal task (such as overlearned sequences of responses)
impair performance. One possibility as to why this is the case
is that highly primed responses compete for the control of
action, or in other words threaten to seize the control of output. Therefore, these primed responses must be inhibited so
that the task requirements can be fulfilled. However, such
inhibition of the irrelevant carries a cost to performance,
either because inhibition is incomplete or because the deliberate act of inhibition comes with an overhead cost to performance (Marsh et al., 2012; Marsh, Sörqvist, et al., 2015). In
the current paper, we seek further evidence for the generalizability of this novel finding to mental arithmetic – a task
arguably more common in applied settings.
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Distraction of Mental Arithmetic
Research suggests that mental arithmetic may be impaired
by background sound in a similar way to short-term memory. For example, both speech and nonspeech sounds disrupt a running total mental arithmetic task
(e.g., 7 + 5 + 9 + 3 + 2 + 4 = ?; Banbury & Berry, 1998;
Hadlington, Bridges, & Beaman, 2006; Perham, Hodgetts,
& Banbury, 2013). That background sound comprising
office noise with speech produces more distraction than
office noise without speech in both serial recall and mental
arithmetic tasks (Perham et al., 2013) suggests that the
magnitude of disruption of mental arithmetic by sound is
modulated by the degree of acoustic change within the
sound. This is consistent with the idea that some forms of
mental arithmetic require serial processing. For example,
one way in which mental arithmetic problems are solved
is through procedural processes involving counting whereby
the individual reaches the solution by ascending or
descending the numerical scale one by one (Imbo &
Vandierendonck, 2007) and transformation whereby individuals use related operations and known facts. For example, computation of the solution to “26 + 7” may entail
transforming the problem to “26 + 4 + 3” (through recognition that 7 is the same as 4 + 3) and then adding 4 to 26 to
make the known fact “30” then adding the remaining 3 to
make the correct total of “33.” Mental arithmetic problems,
such as these that involve subvocal verbalization to keep
track of running totals, ascend or descend numerical scales,
or temporarily store immediate or partial results when
required, should be much more susceptible to disruption
via the changing-state properties of speech than mental
arithmetic problems that can be solved through direct
retrieval from long-term memory such as retrieving the
answer “9” when given the mental arithmetic problem
“6 + 3.”
Unlike short-term serial recall, however, superimposed
on this changing-state effect in the context of the mental
arithmetic task, is a between-sequence semantic similarity
effect. For example, Perham and MacPherson (2012) found
that background sound comprising auditory numbers similar to the to-be-calculated number (e.g., 29, 30, 31, 32, and
33 if the solution was 28), compared to dissimilar to the tobe-calculated number (e.g., 72, 73, 74, 75, and 76 if the correct answer was 28), produced greater impairment. This is
consistent with the competition-for-action account since
unlike serial recall, wherein semantic processing of the task
material is rather inconsequential for effective task performance, the semantic processing of the task-relevant digits
determines effective task performance. Therefore, a
competition between the semantic processing of digits
should occur, especially when the speech activates
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habitual-response patterns that the individual also uses for
the mental arithmetic task (such as ascending the numerical scale). Furthermore, prior findings within the context of
mental arithmetic assume that arithmetic facts are
retrieved from a network of associative links whereby candidate items become activated and the participant must
select the appropriate response from among these competing alternatives (LeFevre, Bisanz, & Mrkonjic, 1988). From
the response-priming view, selection of the solution would
be made much more difficult if the background sound
primes an incorrect, but semantically similar item
(e.g., “57” as opposed to “27” when the solution is “58”;
see Perham & MacPherson, 2012) since significant control
over action must already be exerted to prevent the selection
of the erroneous candidates, and priming incorrect solutions will require more by way of cognitive control to prevent them from assuming behavioral output (Marsh et al.,
2012, 2013; Marsh, Sörqvist, et al., 2015). Although the
semantic distance effect within the context of auditory distraction and mental arithmetic is now established, it was
done so by using background speech comprising ascending
sequences of numbers (Perham & MacPherson, 2012).
The response-priming view suggests that an ascending
sequence will produce impairment because it embodies a
sequence that is already in competition for the control of
action: participants count upwards in ones to reach the solution. Stronger support for the response-priming view would
be obtained if an ascending sequence of numbers (e.g., “23,
24, 25, 26, 27”) produced more distraction than a descending sequence of numbers (e.g., “27, 26, 25, 24, 23”) when
both were globally equidistant to the solution (e.g., “28”).
In the current study, we further tested the habitualresponse priming hypothesis – embedded within the competition-for-action account of distraction (e.g., Marsh et al.,
2013) – by asking participants to perform addition mental
arithmetic problems (wherein the numerical scale is
ascended) in the presence of three sound conditions:
Ascending numbers, descending numbers, and a quiet control condition. Support for the response-priming view would
be obtained if mental arithmetic performance is impaired
more by background sound comprised of numbers in
ascending order, because the sound would – on this view –
threaten to seize control of the processes required for adding
lower numbers into higher numbers. As a counterpoint, the
interference-by-content view (e.g., Salamé & Baddeley,
1982) predicts performance impairments in both sound conditions, because there is an overlap between the items in the
background sound and the to-be-calculated numbers.
However, according to the interference-by-content view,
there should be no difference between the two sound conditions because this view makes no assumption about the
compatibility between the processes engaged in the task
and the involuntary analysis of background sound.
Method
Experimental Psychology (2016), 63(3), 141–149
Participants
Thirty-three undergraduate students from a university in
the south of Wales participated in exchange for course
credit. All participants had normal hearing and vision, were
between 18 and 30 years of age.
Materials
Mental Arithmetic Problems
PowerPoint was employed to present each participant with
20 different mental arithmetic addition problems for each
of the three conditions. Each problem was constructed
using numbers ranging between 11 and 79, with the answers
from numbers between 23 and 99. Any problems using tie
operators (e.g., 16 + 16) or numbers ending in a 0 or 5 were
considered too easy to calculate and thus not used in this
experiment (LeFevre et al., 1988). Each of the addition
problems used was considered as hard, by ensuring the
answer exceeded the tens boundary: for example, 17 + 36
(Imbo & Vandierendonck, 2007; Perham & MacPherson,
2012). This was to maximize the chance that the problems
were solved using non-retrieval strategies such as rehearsal.
The smallest number in each problem was presented first
and each problem was on the screen for 3 s. Following their
presentation, a blank slide appeared for 2 s to allow participants to write down their answer on a response form.
Sound
The irrelevant sounds were recorded using the software
program Multi-Speech. Each sound consisted of either five
numbers or words, with each number or word being presented for approximately 700 ms followed by approximately 300 ms of silence and began as soon as the
problem was presented. The ascending condition had the
numbers increasing immediately after the solution to the
problem. For example, if the problem solution was “53”
then the similar ascending numbers were “54, 55, 56, 57,
58.” The descending condition had the irrelevant numbers
decreasing from the number immediately below the solution to the problem. For example, if the problem solution
was “26” then the similar descending numbers were “25,
24, 23, 22, 21.”
Design and Procedure
A repeated-measures design was adopted with the withinsubjects variable being sound. It had three levels: quiet,
ascending numbers, and descending numbers (for detailed
information, please see Electronic Supplementary Material,
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N. Perham et al., Distraction of Arithmetic by Background Speech
ESM 1). The order of presentation of the sounds was counterbalanced so that each sound was placed in each position
an equal number of times. The dependent variable was the
number of mental arithmetic problems answered correctly.
Participants were tested in small groups of one to five in
a computer room under laboratory conditions in order to
alleviate any extraneous sounds. They were given standardized instructions asking them to attempt to complete as
many of the addition problems possible within the 3 s time
limit before being confronted with the next problem on
screen and to ignore any sounds that they heard through
the headphones. Participants received two practice control
trials, before commencing the actual experiment, in order
to prepare them for the experimental structure.
Results
As can be seen in Figure 1, mental addition was best in quiet,
somewhat impaired by background speech comprised of
numbers in descending order, and more impaired by background speech comprised of numbers in ascending order.
A repeated-measures analysis of variance revealed an effect
of condition, F(2, 64) = 11.88, MSE = 0.017, p < .001,
ηp2 = .27. The descending numbers condition was different
from quiet, t(32) = 2.10, p = .043, and from the ascending
numbers condition, t(32) = 3.54, p = .001. Moreover, the
ascending numbers condition was also different from quiet,
t(32) = 3.91, p < .001. With corrections for multiple comparisons following the procedure suggested by Holm (1979),
the null hypothesis for the difference between ascending
numbers and quiet would be rejected, as well as the null
hypothesis for the difference between ascending numbers
and descending numbers and the null hypothesis for the difference between descending numbers and quiet.
Discussion
The ability to solve mental addition problems was more
impaired by background sound comprised of numbers in
ascending order, in comparison with background sound
comprised of numbers in descending order. This novel finding supports the competition-for-action account of distraction and in particular the response-priming view (Marsh
et al., 2013) whereby task-irrelevant auditory distracters
prime responses that threaten to assume the control of output, but only when the primed responses are potential candidates for output. In the context of mental addition, the
task is to seek a sum of two numbers that is larger than
the two individual numbers; the calculation involves
counting by ascending the numerical scale (Imbo &
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Figure 1. Mean probability score on the mental addition task in three
conditions: A quiet control condition, a condition with background
speech comprised of descending numbers (e.g., “36, 35, 34, 33, 32,
31”), and a condition with background speech comprised of ascending
numbers (e.g., “41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46”). Error bars represent standard
error of means.
Vandierendonck, 2007), a process that is in conflict with
the involuntary extraction of sequential information within
the to-be-ignored number sequence when that irrelevant
sequence comprises numbers in ascending order that are
semantically close to the solution (see also Buchner et al.,
1996; Marsh et al., 2013).
Implications for Theories of Auditory
Distraction
The observation of a between-sequence semantic similarity
effect found in a previous study on mental arithmetic (Perham & MacPherson, 2012) – poorer mental arithmetic performance when the irrelevant numbers are semantically
similar to the solution of the arithmetic problems than
when they were dissimilar – at first glance would appear
compatible with both the interference-by-content and the
competition-for-action accounts of auditory distraction. A
crucial characteristic of the interference-by-content account
is that impairment occurs when the task and the sound contain similar items (e.g., numbers for mental arithmetic).
Interference-by-content could occur, for example, when
the sound activates representations within an associative
network of links and becomes represented with the to-becalculated solution within working memory. Recall is
impaired as a result of the similarity in identity (i.e., content) between the to-be-ignored and to-be-remembered
items within the same representational space (Marsh
et al., 2009). Note that this account is very different from
the competition-for-action view that supposes that preventing retrieval of distracter items, while retrieving the
contextually-appropriate or desired response (the solution
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N. Perham et al., Distraction of Arithmetic by Background Speech
to the arithmetic equation) carries an overhead cost resulting in impoverished task performance (Marsh, Hughes, &
Jones, 2008, Marsh et al., 2012). In this way, the interference-by-content account would appear to receive some
support from the difference in performance between the
quiet condition and the descending numbers condition of
the present experiment.
However, the interference-by-content account cannot
explain why the ascending numbers condition produces
poorer performance than the descending numbers condition, since the content of the two streams is identical. Moreover, the interference-by-content account offers no
explanation as to why nonspeech sound (office noise comprising mobile telephone ringing, photocopying, computer
humming, typing, printing, telephone ringing, papers being
shuffled, doors opening and closing, footsteps, and knocking at the door; Perham et al., 2013) significantly impairs
mental arithmetic performance, since in this situation there
is no overlap in content between the background sound and
the mental arithmetic task.
The finding of a difference between ascending and
descending numbers condition is more consistent with the
attentional capture account (Bell et al., 2012; Cowan, 1995;
Röer, Bell, Dentale, & Buchner, 2011) than with the interference-by-content account on the assumption that ascending
numbers may be regarded as more task-relevant and more
familiar than descending sequences whereby the attentional
system is selectively more responsive to this input. The current experiment is inconclusive as to whether the competition-by-action or the attention capture account is the
better explanation. However, while sequences of ascending
single-digit numbers (such as “5, 6, 7, 8”) may be more
frequently encountered than sequences of descending single-digit numbers (“8, 7, 6, 5”) and therefore be more captivating, the current experiment involved the presentation of
sequences of two-digit numbers (“55, 56, 57, 58”), not single-digit numbers. Assuming that ascending sequences of
two-digit numbers are no more familiar than descending
sequences, the results appear to be more supportive of a
competition-for-action account than an attention capture
account. Moreover, one driving mechanism behind attention capture is expectation violation (Röer, Bell, & Buchner,
2014c). The attentional system develops a neural model of
past experience with the sound environment upon which it
forms expectations of future sound stimulation. When these
expectations are violated, the locus-of-attention is switched
toward the sound (Hughes, Vachon, & Jones, 2011). A violation that could precipitate attention capture would be the
presentation of the two-digit number “57” in the sequence
“53, 54, 55, 57” (cf. Marsh, Röer, Bell, & Buchner, 2013).
However, neither the ascending sequences nor the descending sequences in the experiment reported here contained
such violations. Because of this, the attention capture
account would suppose that both sound conditions should
impair performance to the same degree. Taken together,
the results appear to be easier to reconcile with the competition-for-action account than the interference-by-content
account and the attention capture account.
The competition-for-action view (Hughes, Vachon, Hurlstone, et al., 2011) explains the distraction produced by nonspeech, speech, and speech number sounds neatly. The
obligatory processing of acoustic changes within the nonspeech and speech sounds disrupts mental arithmetic
because it yields serial order information that competes
with the deliberate serial motor planning involved in the
mental arithmetic task (e.g., using subvocalization to count,
keep track of running totals, and store intermediate solutions; Hughes & Jones, 2005). Moreover, superimposed
on this generic irrelevant sound effect are semantic competitions-for-action. One example of these is when background speech primes/activates candidate solutions to the
arithmetic problems that are contextually-appropriate
(e.g., within the same number range of the solution) but
response-inappropriate (e.g., “57” as opposed to “27” when
the solution is “58”). Here, cognitive control must operate
to exclude the distracter item from the response (Perham
& MacPherson, 2012). The additional disruption produced
by the ascending numbers condition is due to the activation
of a habitual-response sequence – presented by the irrelevant sound – that conflicts with the similar counting process
that underpins the mental arithmetic addition task. In general the upward, as compared to downward, counting
within the background speech superficially fits the task
requirement of ascending the numerical scale to reach
the mental arithmetic problem solution. This upward counting schema must be prevented from assuming the control
of action, the cost being to increase error in counting on
the mental arithmetic task (see also, Buchner et al., 2008;
Marsh et al., 2013).
Experimental Psychology (2016), 63(3), 141–149
Future Directions
The habitual-response priming view yields as yet untested
predictions. For example, it would be expected that a
descending, rather than ascending, sequence of irrelevant
numbers would produce greater impairment if the mental
arithmetic involved counting downwards to reach a solution. This is because the descending number speech would
prime responses compatible with the attempt to find
numbers that are lower than the current running total. At
first glance a simple test of this prediction would be to
use subtraction as opposed to addition mental arithmetic.
However, problematic for this notion is that procedural processes involved in subtraction often involve the process of
addition (Campbell, 2008; Torbeyns, De Smedt, Peters,
Ghesquière, & Verschaffel, 2011). For example, although
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147
an individual may be taught that “62 + 23 = 85” and that
“85 ! 62 = 23,” one can also solve a mental subtraction
problem (“46 ! 9 = ?”) by seeking the distance between
the lower number (“9”) and the higher number (“46”)
through mental addition (“9 + ? = 46”). Therefore any
future study addressing the hypothesis would either have
to train individuals to solve subtraction problems via addition, or screen participants as to how they perform subtraction. More broadly, the competition-for-action view
suggests that the effects of nonspeech sounds, and speech
sounds that are semantically-dissimilar to the to-be-calculated total, will principally disrupt performance on mental
arithmetic tasks that require subvocalization such as
calculation processes including transforming, counting,
temporary maintenance of intermediate solutions, and
keeping track of running totals. Mental arithmetic problems
that can be solved through direct retrieval from long-term
memory, thereby bypassing subvocalization, should be
relatively invulnerable to distraction by nonspeech and
semantically-dissimilar sounds. However, performance on
direct retrieval problems may be disrupted by the semantic
distance between a to-be-calculated solution and the
numbers within the background sound, as the sound primes
competing responses within a network of associative links
(LeFevre et al., 1988).
Individual differences may also play a role in impairment
here. For example, high working memory capacity is known
to modulate impairment from irrelevant sound (Sörqvist,
Halin, & Hygge, 2010), at least when attention capture
underpins disruption (Sörqvist, Marsh, & Nöstl, 2013) and
when semantically-based competition-for-action underpins
disruption (Marsh, Sörqvist, et al., 2015). Working memory
capacity appears to be unrelated to the magnitude of the
ISE (Sörqvist et al., 2013), but generally high-capacity individuals are less susceptible to distraction than their lowcapacity counterparts. Further, dyslexics, and those with
difficulties in literacy, have problems with exploiting the
long-term knowledge of sequential information and utilize
spatial strategies more than non-dyslexics (Bacon, Handley,
& McDonald, 2007; Perham & Howell, 2015; Perham,
Whelpley, & Hodgetts, 2012). This suggests that any disruption involving processing order information from long-term
memory may be less susceptible to disruption from background sound and further, that individuals who have difficulties processing this order information may adopt
additional strategies that could involve other processes such
as those involving spatial rotation.
but yet incongruent with the response required for effective
task performance. A specific instantiation of this is observed
when auditory distracters prime procedures/responses (e.g.,
counting upward in ones) that are compatible – but ultimately incongruent – with the output required for effective
task performance. This response-priming hypothesis is
embedded within the competition-for-action view of distraction and functions as a way to specify the nature of the processes responsible for disruption. Future research is required
to determine whether also attention capture underpins distraction as reported here, perhaps in collaboration with a
competition-for-action mechanism. Future research should
also explore whether congruency effects (e.g., greater
impairment by descending, as compared with ascending,
number speech on subtraction problems) can be found in
the context of different versions of the mental arithmetic
task. The current study represents an important first step into
unravelling the underpinnings of auditory distraction in relation to mental arithmetic performance.
Conclusions
In sum, the experiment reported here provides evidence for
the novel view that distraction is most pronounced in settings
where the task-irrelevant material is context-appropriate
! 2016 Hogrefe Publishing
Acknowledgments
The first two authors contributed equally to the work carried out here.
Electronic Supplementary Material
The electronic supplementary material is available with the
online version of the article at http://dx.doi.org/10.1027/
1618-3169/a000314
ESM 1. Raw data (Excel table).
Raw mean arithmetic scores for each patient under each
sound condition.
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Received May 1, 2015
Revision received October 21, 2015
Accepted October 21, 2015
Published online June 29, 2016
Nick Perham
Department of Applied Psychology
Cardiff Metropolitan University
Western Avenue
Cardiff CF5 2YB
United Kingdom
Tel. +44 29 2041-6255
Fax +44 29 2041-6985
E-mail [email protected]
Experimental Psychology (2016), 63(3), 141–149